Gardner councilors nix raises for mayor, themselves

Tuesday

Feb 19, 2013 at 10:00 PMFeb 19, 2013 at 10:33 PM

By George Barnes TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Council President Alice P. Anderson’s words proved to be prophetic: “In my experience off and on the council since 1992, it has never not been controversial to discuss this topic,” she said during a discussion Tuesday night of proposals to increase pay for the mayor, City Council and School Committee. “It is never politically easy to make this choice, but someone, somewhere has to make this choice.”

The discussion occurred during an informal meeting before the regular council meeting. In the regular meeting, the council voted down all three raises.

The councilors all acknowledged the decision was not easy. The council had been asked to approve raising the mayor’s pay from $78,650, which it has been at since 2009, to $85,000. The council pay would have been raised from $6,500 to $7,000 and the School Committee pay from $3,500 to $4,000.

Councilor Patrick M. Gerry, a member of the Finance Committee, argued in favor of the raises, saying they made good fiscal sense. He said the increases would allow the pay to keep pace with inflation.

Councilor Ronald F. Cormier, also a member of the Finance Committee, acknowledged that supporting raises would not play well with voters, “but to keep in step with inflation is logical and a fiscally responsible thing to do.”

Councilor Edward Gravel said he opposed the raises.

“It would be rare to find the average person in the private sector receiving these kinds of raises,” he said.

Mr. Gravel said residents of the city are already faced with many increases.

“This isn’t an endless pot of money,” he said.

Councilor Joshua Cormier also opposed the raises. He said there are many ways to look at the need for raises. He said he did comparative studies on other communities based on many criteria. But he said many of the people in the city are not getting inflation raises and some have lost their jobs.

“When you look at comparables, I look at Joe and Sally living in an apartment,” he said.

Mrs. Anderson noted that neither “Joe” nor “Sally” was running a city, but the final vote for the mayoral raise was 7-4 against.

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